


Nightmare Fuel

by mitslits



Series: Return to the Citadel [2]
Category: Mad Max Fury road, Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 00:51:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3999658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/pseuds/mitslits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max's visions are still nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare Fuel

Max is having nightmares again. Furiosa doesn't know, but she suspects. She also suspects they have never truly gone away.

She notices the dark circles under his eyes, a mark showing how little he sleeps, how restless the sleep he gets is. She remembers the time when she looked the same. For months after the explosion that took her arm she would wake in the darkness, mouth gaping open in a silent scream, sure she was being engulfed by flame once again. But she never was and the nightmares gradually faded away until she didn't have them anymore, the only sign of the accident her metal prosthesis.

She has no way of knowing that just being near her has lessened the nightmares, the visions of those Max didn't manage to save. Because Furiosa is an outlier. He saved her. He watched her dying, but brought her back, a new experience in his twisted world. Still, the old fear eats at him and sometimes his dreams turn dark.

 _She is lying there, his ears filled with that desperate groaning as her lungs pulled for air they couldn't hold. He stabs the knife into her side and she sucks in oxygen. Then something within him snaps and he tugs the knife out only to drive it into her, again and again. Because he is Max the Mad and he hears the voices of the dead. The voices of those he couldn't save. He couldn't save them. He can't save her. He can't save anyone. She has to die. He has to kill her._

He startles awake, tugs his jacket closer around himself, and spends the rest of the night staring at the wall opposite, reminding himself that Furiosa is alive.

Furiosa notices Max spending more and more time around her, always with a half-panicked look in his eyes, as if he's afraid she will disappear if he lets her out of his sight. She doesn't think he wants her to see this and she pretends she doesn't, going about her business as usual.

One night, as he turns to leave her room, she makes a decision. "Stay with me", she says, looking over at him. Her face is perfectly neutral.

Max stares at her for a moment, saying nothing. He walks to the door and she thinks he is going to leave, but he only pushes it closed. He toes off his boots and shrugs out of his jacket, leaving them in a neat pile by the side of the bed before sliding under the covers.

Furiosa joins him and they lay with their backs to each other.

"Thank you." It is quiet, barely a whisper, but Furiosa hears it.

She doesn't reply, simply closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep as Max does the same.

Sometime during the night they roll onto their backs, arms pressed against each other. Max doesn't wake from nightmares.


End file.
